Over at NBC OlympicTalk, Nick Zaccardi interviews Dodgers hitting coach Mark McGwire -- and goes back over some of McGwire’s older interviews -- to tell the story of baseball’s debut as an Olympic sport in Los Angeles in 1984.
It was a demonstration sport then, but Topps made some memorable baseball cards out of it all and there were a lot of big names on that squad for the United States. So many, in fact, that future Hall of Famer Barry Larkin was a bench warmer. And with McGwire playing first base, Will Clark was pressed into duty in the outfield. Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, that the U.S. didn’t win the gold.
The good stuff there are McGwire’s anecdotes, from the funny story behind his Olympic baseball card to some thoughts on whether, if he had it to do over again, he’d still have joined up for the U.S. team.
